A camera, a little girl and a mother’s fears

A few years ago, a stranger shook my world in less than two minutes with just a camera phone.

My then 4-year-old daughter and I were seated in a clip shop, waiting our turn for quick haircuts. She was no more than three feet away from me; he was no more than six chairs away.

There were a few other adults in the waiting area, and I didn’t even notice him until I heard him mumbling. When I turned to see what he was mumbling about, I saw him holding up his camera as if to take a video of my little girl.

“I wish I had a little dark-haired girl of my own,” he mumbled in a low, happy tone.

Immediately, I stood up and scooped my child onto my lap. I glared at him in disbelief. I felt the eyes — and judgment — of the other adults waiting for haircuts fall upon me. Did they hear what he mumbled? Or did I hear it wrong?

Here’s the thing: He ignored me. He just sat there, swiping at his phone screen, continuing to hold it up as if he were still shooting.

I was fuming, feeling powerless. I wanted to rip the phone out of his hands. I wanted to hurl it out into the street. Or take it to the cops, or some bad, bad vigilante type with little dark-haired daughters of his own.

And as I sat there speculating and gathering up mental pitchforks with which to chase the monster back up to his Gothic castle, I realized I had no idea what was on that guy’s phone or if he was even capturing images at all.

I had no proof as to what I thought he might have said — or even if he said something extremely creepy. I had no idea of what was going on in his mind, because images of a little kid decked out in Walmart’s latest Garanimal offerings are totally legal and benign.

A minute later he was called up to the haircut chair; 10 minutes later he was groomed, billed and out the door.

I complained to the manager and was told that the customer was a regular who is often asked to leave because he likes to chitchat with the stylists a little too much.

“Did you ask to see his camera?” the manager asked.

Of course I didn’t demand this stranger hand over his phone, I mumbled to myself.

Because the whole thing might have been nothing; he might have been Skyping with his dark-haired grandkids for all I know, and holding the phone up just gave him a good camera angle.

But it might have been something. And I’ve captured enough of my daughter’s childhood on my smartphone to recognize how a successful videographer holds a camera, narrates a shot and manages to go unnoticed.

So I understand the intricacies of the latest attempts at legislation regarding improper photography that lawmakers were pushing through last week.

The public needs protection, but it also needs free speech and self-expression. In this realm, the ubiquitous phone camera has created a terrible landscape.

In 2011, a man took underwater photos of kids in their swimsuits at SeaWorld and was charged with several counts of improper photography; in 2013, an appeals court dropped the charges because you can’t prove anything ooky was going on in the mind of the photographer.

Just a camera phone. Just benign images. And there’s nothing creepy about that.